Damages
by Tolakasa
Summary: Season 1. There is a secret in the Raven, one that Janette is carefully protecting from everyone, including Nick.


This would take place about the middle of Season 1, sometime after "False Witness."

Written for merfilly for the 2007 Yuletide challenge.

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Damages 

There was a room downstairs that was completely hers, to which even Miklos, who she trusted with every door and cabinet and safe in the club, did not have a key. It was her private sanctuary, more private than even her apartment; the one place where no other, vampire or mortal, trespassed without her knowledge, where she could sleep in perfect safety and store her most precious possessions away from the jealous eyes of those who visited. Janette did not sleep so often as those she allowed to stay in the basement, and as often as not spent her days awake, sipping blood and wine for strength while awaiting deliveries and inspectors and the other daytime nuisances of running a club. _These are the drawbacks of not hiring mortals._

Her bed—her _real_ bed—was in that room, though she had not slept there in many long weeks.

As far as the Toronto community was concerned, LaCroix had simply vanished, in the way vampires were wont to do; he had never been one to settle down for more time than it took to wreak havoc or wreck Nicolas' current plans. No one had sensed his presence, not even the children of his blood. No one was inclined to look for him, or ask after him. There were only two exceptions: Janette, and Nicolas.

Once she would never have been able to lie to Nick, not about a matter so important. Once he would have realized that her question, dropped oh-so-casually into one of his moral crises, was one to which she already knew the answer; once he would have recognized her startled and venomous reaction for the acting it was. But no, Nicolas was having a moral quandary, and in those times he never saw anything outside the shell of his own misery.

Poor lost little boy.

Janette shut down the ham-handed flirtations of today's delivery boy with an icy comment that made him hand her the clipboard for her signature and scurry off as if she'd threatened to geld him. Pity she couldn't. If mortals must breed, they really should ensure that substandards like that did not. Perhaps _she_ would, now that she had his scent. Her guest needed more blood, and fresher, than she could acquire through the normal channels, and he would certainly appreciate the idea behind her choice of prey.

Now, finally, with the wine stored and the paperwork filed away, she could remove the bottle of blood from the warmer, descend the stairs, step around the alcoves where other vampires slept, and unlock the door to her apartment. These were her public rooms, where she could entertain visitors too private for the club if necessary, but it was mostly for show; sometimes the inspectors, upon learning that she lived on the premises, demanded to see her quarters, to make sure they did not interfere with any health concerns of the club. It made no sense to her, but then, mortals seldom did.

The false bedroom, as far as most visitors ever came, had a door hidden in the walls, its outlines concealed in the wallpaper pattern. Another vampire might be able to follow the scent trail to it, but she obliterated that with obnoxious scents—powerful to a vampire, though just noticeable to mortals—and a more obvious false door that opened into a corridor back to the wine cellar. The _real_ door led only to another door, double-locked. This door not even Nicolas knew about. LaCroix had not known, until it was necessary, and had he not been dying, she would not have revealed it to him then. A lady must have her secrets.

She turned the key in the bottom lock, then carefully unlocked the deadbolt above it with a second key. It was a measure of his weakness that the locks were still intact, that he had not broken the door down simply to prove the point that she had no right to keep him confined.

As it was, her guest was up and about, fiddling with the controls to the radio (she had placed one here strictly for his benefit) and muttering under his breath about the idiot who had taken his time slot. Janette stood in the doorway, listening carefully, measuring his strength by the curses and how quickly he ran out of breath for them. His native Latin, she thought, peppered with the coarser common terms he had neglected to teach her, which meant he was not yet strong enough to maintain his careful, cultured façade for her sake. He moved gingerly, fearing pain—so unlike the vampire she knew. He might have been a different man entirely.

It was not right. LaCroix was so old, so powerful... Why was it taking him so long to heal?

True, the fire had been severe, as had the gaping hole in his chest. His skin had still been charred and blistered, the bones in his hands whitely visible, the internal organs singed, and he had been out of his mind with pain and fever. No vampire she knew could have survived such injuries, and it was only sheer good fortune and a quirk of anatomy that had kept the beam from directly piercing his heart. Nicolas had been too intent on saving his mortal friends to realize that he was two inches off target, that he had staked his master through a lung, not the heart. Regardless, the fire _should_ have finished him off. Fire was not easily survived, even by the most powerful vampire.

But when they were powerful enough to survive, when they were powerful enough to burn and _live_... It should not take this long. Weeks, perhaps, but not _months._

LaCroix had ordered her not to interfere, given her an explicit command not to follow him for his final showdown with Nicolas. Janette chose to believe his silence on her disobedience was his way of expressing gratitude that she had been there to pull him from the fire—literally, as fate would have it. That was perhaps no more than wishful thinking, but until the reprimand came, she would believe as she wished, and not even LaCroix could stop her.

_Much as he may wish._

"You are not well," she said softly. "You should still be resting."

"I should be hunting." It was little more than a snarl, not at all the softer for being in French.

"You are too weak." She retrieved two of her finest wine glasses from their place on the shelf, and set them on the table beside the bottle. She had a dim memory of some doctor—likely one she had eaten, and not one she had consulted, since the physicians of her mortal days would not deign to treat a whore—saying once that presentation was everything to the sick. "Human. As fresh as I could obtain."

"Not good enough."

"You are too weak to hunt," she said firmly, filling the glasses, "and I cannot risk bringing someone here for you. Another week, perhaps."

"A _week?_" he growled.

"It will go faster if you rest. And eat." He was not wearing the shirt she had laid out for him—the skin of his arms and chest, though the char and blisters had faded to an angry red, were yet too tender to bear the touch of fabric. His legs had not been burned so badly, so they were already healed, and he was able to wear that much clothing. His first few days conscious had been...uncomfortable. LaCroix had no mortal qualms about modesty, of course, but he had interpreted the enforced nudity as powerlessness. "You _must_ rest, or you will not heal."

"I _will _heal," he snarled, "and I will—"

"You will forgive him."

"I will _not!_" LaCroix roared—and collapsed onto the bed, coughing blood.

She gave him an arch look, and did not mention that it seemed his pierced lung was still not fully healed. "You _always_ forgive him," she pointed out, risking his displeasure by the hint of sarcasm as much as by the contradiction.

"Look what he has done to me!" Normally, that would have been another roar; today, it was merely an overgrown whisper.

"You know how he is when you threaten his pet mortals. What did you expect?" She held out a glass to him.

He took it ungratefully; she had the sudden image of LaCroix as a small, sullen child, and almost laughed, but she was old enough to know better. He swallowed the blood, making a face as he did so. It had cooled past the critical point while he was snarling. "Where is he?"

_Nicolas_. It always came down to Nicolas. "Tending to his own—life."

"Has he—"

"He believes you dead. That he killed you."

"And you didn't—"

"It would be foolish of me to punish him for murdering you when I know for certain that you are not dead," she pointed out. "Doubly foolish, since you would insist on punishing him yourself once you recovered, and punish me for robbing you of the opportunity." She refilled his glass, and smiled. "Besides, imagine his surprise when you appear on his doorstep wishing vengeance."

Her master stared at her, as if surprised by her audacity, but then he smiled, cold and cruel, even for a man of his legendary cruelty. "Oh, no, Janette," he said softly, in the voice that had always been his most threatening, and downed the second helping of blood. "When I wreak my vengeance, I will not be on his _doorstep_."

**_the end_**


End file.
